


In Malice

by OneTrueStudent



Series: The Gloaming [6]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-10 10:50:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7841833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneTrueStudent/pseuds/OneTrueStudent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Malice Brand the Artificer created the Fountain of Youth</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1

Cassilda lead four guests through secret ways under Castle Celephais to the catacombs beneath the palace. She was dark and slim, little more than a shadow, and they were large, silent, and unkempt. They wore bearskins and knives. She left them in a small private chapel. When she returned the king was with her. Vol and Tuk rose to their feet, but Jal and Myr did not.

"Thank you. Be seated," said King Kuranes XIV, Lord of the Dreaming City, King on the Crystal Throne, and Vicar of Morpheus between Pallas' Four Corners. He had been Winston in his youth, but now his only name was Kuranes. "Is it snowing yet? I haven't been outside today."

"It threatens," Jal answered.

"Indeed. It is the season for it," Kuranes agreed, not seeming surprised. "It will get worse soon. This is going to be a winter for the ages. What do you all know of Gehenna?"

"Tell us," replied Jal. Myr had opened his mouth but shut it when Jal spoke. 

"It is a nation on the north edge of the world. Gehenna itself is the largest of a series of archipelagos, some hundred islands, ten to fifteen of which have permanent settlements of note. People are, or may be, on any of them during the summer, but those inhabited in winter are considered settled. Isle Dis is some four times the size of Lopaz and has soil equally rich. It's the site of the capital city, also Dis. In common speech the terms are interchangeable," said Kuranes. He had a rich, trained voice, and he spoke evenly and well. It was easy to lose oneself in the rhythm of his words, but none four of the fur-clad guests relaxed. They sat tense on the pews, ready to spring, and kept their eyes on his Majesty and the small, dark woman who sat unobtrusively in the shadows.

"Of course you know of the Century War, so I won't bore you with that, but I'll say something of the peace process. When I inherited the throne the Gehennian king was Erl of the Diamond House. He was a belligerent but a realist, and after our victory of Greenway Isle, he sued for peace. This was eight odd years ago. It took us two years to come to terms, and the war officially ended with an exchange of hostages, his eldest son and my youngest. My son Edgar was only just weaned. Neither me nor my wife saw his first steps or heard his first words. Erl's son, Mittage, was already six when he came to us. Obviously we missed his first steps too, but I put him on a horse the first time. He already knew how to sail."

The king paused, then added in wonder, "At six. You may have seen him at the Harvest Festival a few weeks back. Strong boy, big for his age. He sat with us."

"We missed him," Jal replied. His voice was smooth, fitting for the deep chapel. There were stained glass windows, lit by oil lanterns in hidden chambers beyond, reflected and diffused by bronze mirrors. 

His Majesty did not seem to notice the remark. "That's where he sits. He likes to pick at the wood with his nails; you can see how it splinters." He pointed at one of the men or the bench he sat on.

The king lapsed into silence, staring at Myr without seeing him. Under the gaze, Myr felt obligated to look down and observe that the wood was indeed disturbed. Some bored child had worked splinters from the wood for years. 

"We tell him not to," mused Kuranes, barely speaking out loud. "But boys will be bored in church. Let me declare war on that rising tide."

The King shook himself and returned to the quick, professional tone of before. "Four days ago the Ebony House staged a coup. Erl was killed, his wife, their children. Ebony hanged them in the street. They've been hunting members of Erl's lineage. Anyone bound to Diamond by blood is hanged in public, their house burned, possessions taken. Baron Done of House Ebony was dragged from his own bed, and his arms and legs were pulled apart by block and tackle. His mother was Diamond, when the two houses tried for an alliance. As I said, that was four days ago.

"Three days ago, a storm hit. It was bad. There will be no more pigeons. Already the ports are ice locked, and it will be months before they open. Then it is two months by fast ship from there to here. At least six months will pass before the earliest message can arrive." Kuranes was about to continue, but Tuk interrupted him.

"But by then it will be warm enough for pigeons," said Tuk.

The King took no notice of being interrupted but replied to the point, "Yes, if somehow a hawk hadn't gotten into the pigeon coops and killed everything. Darn shame."

"A hawk," said Tuk. "Got into the pigeon coops. In Gehenna. In winter."

"Killed everything," Kuranes agreed.

Tuk nodded slowly. "And how did you hear about this?"

"Only one bird escaped: the one that carried the last message to me. It must have been the hand of the gods."

The bearskin men betrayed nothing on their faces.

His Majesty continued. "In a few months a messenger will arrive. That message will say something to the effect of the peace treaty is over, and Prince Mittage is to be sent home. Mittage is now heir to the Diamond throne, last of his line, and last claimant on the throne of Dis outside house Ebony. They have my son, and I have theirs."

King Kuranes spoke with frigid control. His words were light, but his eyes never moved. 

"Ebony is brutal but not stupid. Gehenna is no stranger to coups, so to pull one off so successfully is the mark of good planning. If they kill Edgar, I won't send Mittage back. Then I have the true king of Gehenna, and recall, we did crush them in our last war. But if I don't send Mittage back, then they will-" Kuranes could not finish. For an instant he lost his detachment, and stared again into the shallow light of the temple, this time looking at an empty pew near the back. It was a nursing pew having a wider aisle than the others. Nursing or pregnant mothers would use them in case they needed to leave during a service. Kuranes stared and his face weakened.

"If I wanted to do anything, there's nothing I can do. The high plains of Huror are a thousand leagues of grasslands and ice. There's nothing between them and the frozen north but blizzards and hail. It would take a year for agents to cross that wasteland, and still there would be no hope of cross the Frozen Sea. The Fhysay is brutal. Ice floes sweep it in the best of times, and no riders could carry boats across the Huror. Furthermore, this is a winter out of legend. Trees are exploding in the Errid Climes. No rider could make the north shore in time, they could not carry a boat for the sea crossing, and no small boat could survive the cold. If one did, one would almost certainly get ice locked. It's impossible."

As he spoke of the magnitude of his futility, Kuranes came back alive. By the time he was finished, he was looking between the four men quickly, seeing the effect of his words. All of his guests acted unmoved, but his Majesty was skilled with such people. He saw them subtly lean forward in their seats and hints of proud smiles, quickly hidden.

"Yes, impossible." Kuranes drew the word out, pulling it taught. "Let's put that aside for now. Want to hear a bit of trivia? Do you know that Celephais is, by oaths spoken by Kuranese the First at the moment of her coronation, a kingdom of men only? And that some enemies of Celephais are considered Ancestral Foes? Dragons, for example. 

"The Ancestral Foe clause requires the crown to take action against them without any of the usual limiting factors; parliamentary procedures, oversight, discretion. There are others. Vampires. Did you know it is illegal, on pain of immolation, for a vampire to exist within the island of Celephais? Did you know we've never confirmed vampires exist, outside of questionable myth, but there's a stack of laws this high on what to do if we found one? We even have a bureau of vampire hunters, and I'm proud to say, they've never let one escape. Also ghosts, which do exist, but there's not much to be done about them. They get hanged when found, but they're already dead. I'm not sure what that's supposed to accomplish," he admitted, allowing himself to pretend smile. 

"You find the Ancestral Foe clause humorous?" asked Jal. His voice was soft, but it raised Cassilda's dark eyes.

"Perhaps. It is often misquoted. Do you know that skin changers aren't in it?" Kuranes replied.

The room was quiet and tense, and no one said anything for a long, frigid time. When Jal's patience wore thin he demanded, "What?"

"The Ancestral Foe clause is a very specific thing. It is immutable, sanctioned by Morpheus when Celephais was raised and Kuranes the First crowned. Taproom lawyers love to recite it. They are wrong. If you read the oaths, you will find no mention of the men who wear the skin of bears anywhere," replied Kuranes in practiced tones.

At his cue Cassilda ghosted forward with a leatherbound scroll, which she placed on the pew by Jal's hand. She vanished back into shadow. 

"Kuranes the Sixth laid down the death penalty for skin changers in the Dreaming Isles. It was in a proclamation, and the exact words are, 'Let them be like Ancestral Foes.' But Kuranes the Sixth could not make it so; he didn't have the power. Morpheus appeared in the flesh to affirm Kuranes the First's oaths. Some have said because Morpheus didn't strike the Sixth when he said it, he tacitly affirmed the proclamation, but the argument, 'He didn't get hit by lightning when he said it so it must be true' lacks legal weight. Men who wear the skins of bears are hunted in the Dreaming Isles by Royal Proclamation, which is a very different thing than the Founding Oaths. 

"I can't change the Founding Oaths. I would need the god himself to appear and affirm my words. He hasn't done that yet. However Royal Proclamation is not so bound. It has the weight of legal inertia and centuries of precedent. It is in the common law. But it is, at heart, the words of one king, and I am a king myself."

Now he had them, and Kuranes saw their eyes pinned to him. He let his words sink in. "Which is another shame. For if anyone could cross the plains of Huror, they would need the speed of a bear. It is said white bears swim in the waters of the Fhysay, even in the winter. Ghostbears, they call them. Such bears are known in Gehenna. They could come to the very edge of the city.

"Such a shame," he said, waiting. 

Jal and Kuranes locked eyes and between them was a battle. Jal's three comrades were looking to him in silence, as was Cassilda, while he and the King bent their wills against each other. The man in the shaggy bearskin looked away first, pointedly lifting the scroll of oaths and reading it from roll to roll while the room watched.

"Would you like a copy of the proclamation?" asked Kuranes, when he was done.

"Yes."

Cassilda had one in hand. She gave it to their guest, and he read it carefully, taking his time. 

"So one king can undo the word of another?" Jal said. His face was closed and guarded.

"That is not untrue, but is incomplete. I spoke of legal inertia and precedent. Do not underestimate them. Removing the prohibition would be the work of a lifetime. Men have been taught to hate skin-changers from birth. Some of these men are the Parliament. To undo proclamation I require a writ, but with that writ is only an Order of Movement. That Order leads to committee-"

"A King can do what he wants!"

"A King cannot!" Kuranes yelled. "Have you heard of the Seventh and the Warlord Dread? Do you know of the Burning Year? The Pillars of Skulls? Kings did what they wanted until the Seventh did so, and we learned what madness a King may want. Understand what we're talking about. You yourself thought skin-changers were Ancestral Foes. In the minds of the common man, and the common minds of Parliament, this is like inviting dragons to dinner. They will oppose me on every front. Some lord wants a tax increase. I would fight it. He says he needs it to protect the people from being eaten by bears that I let in. The people laugh, but look nervously to the palace.

"This will be the end of my legacy," continued Kuranes. "It would take all of my power to have done. Wars are popular. I won't be remembered for ending one. Monsters are scary. I will be remembered for helping them, and historians will recall how much better things were in the old days, before I loosed the floodgates of horror."

"Not for us," said Tuk quietly.

"It's funny how quickly people forget that," Kuranes replied. "Things were so much better in the old days, unless they weren't."

"How could we trust you?" asked Vol.

"Do you have any children?" the king deflected his question.

They shook their heads, except for Jal who said, "Yes."

"Got a favorite?" asked the king.

Their silence matched the Fhysay.

Jal shrugged. "Never thought about it."

"I have six months to pick one," Kuranes added.

"Your Majesty, that doesn't work," said Myr, opening his mouth for the first time. "You say you have six months. Let's say some group makes the journey. Let's say it takes them five months to get there. They would require a ship to return, because no human child could endure five months in the Huror highlands. Two months of sailing. That's seven months, at least, and you would have had to make that decision already."

"Because when the messenger arrives, I will have received a pigeon, and that pigeon will tell me my son is gone from Gehenna, and I will tell the messenger to go swing a rope."

"The boy cannot survive the Huror highlands," said Myr again.

"If Edgar is safe, I need only a message with a position and I will bring the wrath of Celephias. However, I have another idea. The White Ship will pick up my son and his rescuers, and I will greet the men who saved my son with the entire kingdom at my back. I will award honors in the name of God. Let everyone see it."

Myr thought out loud. "So it is not enough to find your boy and escape. We-"

Jal calmly smacked him.

"-the rescuers-" continued Myr, "-must hide until the ice lifts."

"Yes. Or steal a boat and put to sea."

"How would you find the boat?" demanded Myr.

"It's the darnedest thing," said Kurances philosophically. "There may be other pigeons on the island. But there aren't right now."

"Because the hawk got them." 

"Darndest thing," replied the king, smiling. He wanted to say more. His face was drawn, and his eyes hollow. It was the almost laugh that got him, and as Kuranes was about to chuckle about the pigeon matter, he strangled a sob into a cough and froze. 

"Excuse me. I have something I need to do." He turned and fled. 

"Good bye, your Majesty," said Jal and rose for the King's leaving. The other three did as well. His majesty departed without another word, and his back vanished into the darkness of the catacombs. The men in bearskins watched him go, and when he was gone, they were alone with Cassilda. 

"You?" Jal asked.

Cassilda leaned forward, and her head emerged from darkness. "A ship known to me sails for Timmermere on the morning tide. It's a nice hamlet just south of the Huror plains. When I leave here, I will be going there, and I can't stop you if you want to follow me. However I can control the cargo. Is there anything that should be on that ship?"

Her voice was as soft as her appearance, oddly muted and hushed. Even as she spoke her words were blotted out. 

"Is that wise?" Jal asked.

"I don't work for him," she said. "I'm bound by no contract, nor do I report my comings or goings. It is useful for people like me to know people like him. Or you."

The man thought hard, and the others waited for him. When he had made up his mind, he said, "We require a sled."

The woman shrugged, and they filed from the chapel.

 

The Crystal Moment sailed with the tide. As the crewmen puffed on their frozen fingers, the white-hulled merchant lifted from the dock and raced north. The skies were iron grey for two days, and nights terribly black. Yet she pulled into a narrow bay, scarcely more than a broad defile that plunged into the sea, as expected, and the crew stomped their feet and brushed snow from the rigging. The first flakes had just started to fall. In the whole trip none of the sailors asked any questions. A fully laden dogsled sat on the beach with a peculiar harness, far too big for dogs. No sooner were passengers and cargo off than the ship sailed, not even refilling her water casks. 

The hills smelled sharp of evergreens, and the ground was thick with dry needles. A few alders stood above the crowd. Their tops were frosted, but nothing was sticking to the ground. North of them the defile climbed several miles upwards, past a sharp white line. Above it was first light snow, but it built as it climbed. In pockets with no southern exposure, the snow was already thousands of feet further down. The wind off the bay was wet and cold.

"I'm doing it," Jal announced. They had pointedly not discussed it on the ship. 

"I don't trust him," said Vol.

"None of us trust him," Tuk replied. "But I'm going too." 

They were facing each other on the hillside while the ship departed, and Tuk shifted to stand near Jal. Jal was the oldest of them all, and he had white wingtips at the temples. Tuk was the youngest, and the only one to wear a beard. 

"Why?" asked Myr.

Tuk growled. "Because it isn't about him. He's not the one doing the bleeding. That Prince Edgar is going to get hanged one way, and I've never met a seven year old that warranted a hanging. If he doesn't Prince Mittage is going to catch it for him. I've met a few twelve year olds that I wanted to give a good hanging to, but I bloody well didn't. The King's a bastard, and he might not be trustworthy. He isn't trustworthy. The hell with him. I'm not letting either princeling take thirteen loops on a short drop."

"Peace, peace. I'm not arguing with you." Myr put his hands up open-palmed, and Tuk relaxed his shoulders. The younger man pulled an old cone down, seeds long gone, and started ripping it apart in agitation. His hands had to do something. 

"One of us can't go," said Jal, thinking. "Among other things, no mistling knew that business of the oaths, nor the difference of the proclamations. Kuranes meant for us to know. Did you see the subtle way he gave us copies of both? That was no coincidence. Someone must return to Dwim. While this is no doubt important to mistlings as a whole, we mustn't forget our assignment was to gather intelligence. If three of us fail, the last must make it home."

Myr agreed with him. "Dwim needs to know they can find us too. We don't know how, and we were all careful. Kuranes- No. He was too careful with his wording. It would have been Cassilda, whomever, or whatever, she may be. She found us, quickly. Dwim needs to know that."

"Are you going then?" Vol asked. "Rather, where are you going? North to Gehenna or home?"

Myr looked back and forth between the other three, and then stared across the ocean. "I'd rather go north. I left home but recently, and I'm in no hurry to return. But if you want to go north, I'll head back."

"I don't care," Vol replied.

"Then you will return home to Dwim," Jal judged. "Take these and keep them safe." He took the scrolls from hidden pockets in his cloak and passed them over. 

Vol looked unhappy with the decision but did not argue. They stood together for a heartbeat, each looking to the other to speak first. Then Jal shook Vol's hand, and the other two followed suit. They exchanged short goodbyes and another awkward silence. When they split Vol went east alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art credit is Fergal O'Connor. http://fergaloconnor-artist.tumblr.com/
> 
> He is amazing.


	2. Chapter 2

"It still doesn't work," complained Myr. "We made great time across the Huror, but it still took us four months. Ebony had to have sent a messenger to Kuranes offering the hostage exchange by now."

Tuk was lying on his back on a snowdrift. It was fluffy, dry snow that cradled him, and his bearskins made a soft bed. "I think Kuranes was trying to tell us is that all of Ebony's pigeons are going to get killed by a hawk. As in, going forward it's going to be a pigeon slaughter. He's clearly got people up here, but they may not be able to perform a rescue."

Tuk thought for a moment before continuing, "They also may be unwilling to perform a rescue. This new regime seems to be noose happy, and anyone in Gehenna working for Kuranes is a traitor by definition. Traitor's aren't notoriously altruistic."

"But Kuranes is rich. If someone was willing to kill pigeons for money, they should be willing to rescue a lonesome prince for more money," argued Myr.

"Tell me," said Jal. "If it is obvious to you anyone will sell their loyalties for money, how much would you charge?"

Myr didn't answer that.

Their bearskins were now white with eared-hoods and sleeves with claws. They looked out of bear mouths, the lower jaw reaching down to protect their throats, and the upper jaw extending forward overhead in a hat bill. Across their stomachs they wore grizzly fur, bleached white with salt. There was very little on any of them that was not leather, fur, or bone.

Tuk had just finished burying the great sled under a drift before resting in the snow. They were above a low gravel beach where broken ice ground against the stone. The sea east and south was the frozen northern waters of the Fhysay. One could still see traces of sled tracks, coming across the pack ice, but these faded into the grinding motion of the covered waves and the relentless scour of the wind. Far out from the coast ghostbears chased seals, and nearer, small white-winged birds swarmed over sparse nests. Parts of Dis never froze, and these burst with violent greenery in the darkest winter.

North of the beach were lines of sharp mountains, not great peaks, but narrow and jagged. Broken cones jutted in white clusters. Between them salt-water rivers ran down lumpy slopes to the ocean, carrying agitated floes of ice. They had cut many trenches, and the ground was either dead white or explosively verdant between them. 

"I wonder how they live," said Myr. "The plants."

Jal still considered him with a hard suspicion, but he allowed himself to be diverted. He shrugged. "Mother finds a way. Are we stocked?"

Tuk answered. "Two fresh seals and the remainder of the Celephian provisions. Worst case come, we can put the boy in the sled and hie off across the ice. He should be fine until it melts," said Tuk.

"Could we make it south to the Huror?" asked Jal. 

"To? Maybe. Depends on how the melt comes. It can be treacherous. Sometimes the ice looks like it will stay year round, and sometimes it does, but sometimes it melts fast and keeps on melting. I'd hate to get caught out there with the boy and find my toes getting wet. This is to say nothing of the Huror, of course. We might make it there. He could not survive a crossing."

"The Huror-" Jal paused. "The Huror was bad. Focus. It was in the past and may lurk in the future, but we're in the now. Where is the city?"

"North. On the other side of the Jaggerfall." Myr waved vaguely at the mountains. 

"Be specific. Where to the north?" asked Jal.

"Probably where the people are." Myr looked at him flatly. 

Jal turned glacially to stare at him.

"There's a harbor over there," interrupted Tuk. He pointed. "People."

The others looked where he pointed and saw, between narrow hills, the harbor of Dis. It was distant and small. Three white ghostbears travelled like wraiths in the salt spray and snow. 

 

"It was not the pogrom you're describing," said a dark-skinned man in white cowl and dun cloak. It was rabbit fur, and in the tradition of old Ur, the fur was turned inside towards the body. Oiled seal hide formed the waterproof outside of his cape. The man was tall and bald under an inner cap, a head-stocking of rabbit fur under his parka's hood. He tried to dismiss Scarlet's concerns. "People were not randomly hanged in the street. Traitors were, as well as those convicted duly by court, but all executions in Gehenna are public. If you consider it, you will see that all executions should be public. It is secret executions, people disappearing and families left wondering, that are worse."

"Was Ebony not dismembering people with block and tackle?" asked Scarlet.

She was perhaps half the captain's weight and clothed, a third of his size. While he was almost round with many layers of fur coats around his belly, Scarlet wore a flowing red robe over tight white layers. Silver wood extended from her shoulders and hood, adorned with chimes. They tinkled in the evening wind. Her hands were bare, her hair blonde and hidden, and her eyes were a milky blue without distinct pupils. She seemed to have no problems tracking the captain as they talked. 

He sighed, irritably. "Yes, you speak of Done. He was. That was not an official action. Ebony does not have people dismembered. Criminals are hanged, but not dismembered. Come now."

"I don't understand your complaint. You're upset I asked why people were torn limb from limb when Done was torn limb from limb?"

"No, I'm upset-" began the captain and paused. "I am not upset. I am trying to explain before you leap to conclusions, or having already leaped, I am trying to draw you back. Ebony did not order Done's death. Nor did the courts. Dismemberment isn't a penalty or an execution method. If someone is executed, they get hanged. In answer to your question, Ebony did not dismember anyone with block and tackle."

Before Scarlet could say anything, he pressed on, though she did not seem about to argue.

"Done ran afoul of a mob. After the fighting was over, there were rumors of hidden Diamond armies lying in wait around Dis. No one knows who started them, and Archon Merasta of Ebony has personally put them down. However rumors run, and at their peak, they inflamed a mob. This particular mob was searching for Diamond traitors. Since Diamond is mostly from Isle Fen, they speak differently. The mob was grabbing people and making them speak a tricks. Tongue-twisters, I believe you Hysterai call them. 

"Done-" The captain waffled before continuing almost apologetically. "Done had a lisp. He was kicked by a horse as a child and slurred his words. It is regrettable, but hardly the gross campaign of extermination you're implying. As I said, Archon Merasta herself personally stopped the rumors and dispersed the mob."

"After Done was murdered," said Scarlet.

"My God, you are the bloodthirsty one," spat the captain. "Generally one does not punish people before crimes are committed, and her Majesty was a bit preoccupied by establishing fair government before then. Tell me, do you think she should have hunted down the mob, hanged the citizenry by the hundreds, found everyone in the square at the time and inflicted three generations of pain on them? Would that have been better?"

"I never said that, nor anything like it," replied Scarlet. "I'm asking questions."

"You're intimating murder and atrocity, and I'm done with you," snapped the captain, and strode away stomping.

Scarlet smiled.

The captain's name was Tisharee, an old Aramochoan name from his mother's grandfather's grandfather. He, the second mate, all four watch officers, and perhaps a third of the hands of the Sylph were tall, dark-skinned men. He approached the first mate, an even taller white skinned man, and complained bitterly for some time. The mate listened and coiled a rope. The rope didn't particularly need recoiling, and the mate's name was Mik.

"You-" The first mate pointed at his boss. "Need to stop talking to that woman. Every time you do, you tack angry."

"I'm not angry!"

The mate resumed coiling the rope.

Ice in the harbor was thick. Broken, refrozen, plates and spars of rimed ice filled the round depths, and three jetties were indistinct in high tide.

Harbor Dis rarely froze solid. It had not this year. Pack-ice ground to fragments that looked solid, but slide and jostled each other with the wind. The jetties seemed to rise and sink against the tide, while beyond the harbor mouth the ice waited with the coming of a warm spring. It should arrive any day. The harbor was an empty crater some mile across with ships in slings on the the gravel beach and long houses uphill.

"I told you," said the first mate. He still looked reasonably clean. That would change when they put to sea. "Didn't I tell you not to fight with the passengers?"

"But she's wrong!"

The mate chewed his next words. "When is the ice going to break?" he asked, looking out at the ocean.

"We'll have hot southies any day now. Hopefully this week. The Concordance just released her crew for three days leave, so if the ice breaks before they return, we'll have a head-start for Dylath-Leen." The captain glanced sideways towards another three-masted vessel in a sling up the beach. She was empty but uncovered, and her masts were rigged. Everything but she and the Sylph was still wrapped in sheets and their masts were empty spars.

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then we'll wait."

"Waiting is hard on the crew when home is just uphill. We should let them go. Homesickness is the worst when they're close to home."

"They can't be homesick yet. We haven't left. They can be homesick in nine months when we're coming back."

The mate finished his meaningless task and considered doing it again. He did not. He examine the tiller. It had sprouted ice-crystals like fur, so he took a bit of leather to polish the handle smooth. 

"Captain, release the crew. If the Concordance has released hers, she won't get ahead of us. Then put the passengers off for leave. That woman will have to go. The crew can run back to their families for a few days and spend all their money. They'll be even more motivated to put to sea when the weather changes when they're broke. We'll start the journey with a reputation of easiness, and it's always best to start with a fair wind. Besides, I won't have to put up with you arguing politics with the red Archon."

The captain scowled at him. "The crew should be tough."

"The crew should be tough when we're under sail, and we're in cradle!"

"We're staying. If the ice breaks, that's three days of good head-start. We'll make a fortune."

"Maybe," admitted the first mate. "I, of course, respect your authority, sir. Promise me you won't argue politics with the passengers while we wait."

"No."

"Sir."

"No."

"Sir, she's going to push you under the edge."

"I'm fine!" The captain turned his back on his mate and stared out at the harbor mouth, where the ice of the northernmost reach of the Fhysay was dark blue and dense. There was no discrepancy in coverage between the ocean and the harbor, though the deep ice retained the color of blue sea and the harbor ice was frosted over. "It could break any day."

"I don't know why you do this. You must like fighting about politics. You want to be angry, and that woman feeds you. You want to get upset."

"I most certainly do not," snapped the captain, and the mate rolled his eyes.

"Easy," said the captain quietly, and the mate did nothing but burnish the ship's tiller in response. 

The wind whispered in fits and starts, and the crew of the Moment worked the sails, drawn flat on the gravel. The smaller men were picking their way along the stitching, checking for broken threads. The wind did not relent, and the idle crew was sprawled out in the billowing shrouds, keeping them flat with their bodies.

"Tell the men that if there are no missed stitches in the sails, and I will check with a very harsh eye, and if the sails are put right-shape and tight-ways back in the hold, they may have two days leave, and we will draw lots for a rotating watch of overnight shore leave. Putting the hull down is a three watch job, so we won't miss a day if the ice breaks while one watch is away," said captain Tisharee, standing firm on the pilot's deck while mate Mik polished his knob.

"At once, sir. They'll redouble their efforts."

"Good." The captain looked sideways at him, and the mate stood perfectly still at attention. Then Tisharee strode down his cabin, leaving Mik to relay the crew their orders. Shortly he heard a faint cheer through the porthole as he rearranged his maps.

 

 

Three bears roamed among the ships, less than the length of the lowest spar from the lifted keel of the Crystal Moment when her captain released the crew from the deck. They sat back on their haunches as the crew whooped and hollered, and scampered down ladders and the broad wooden frame of the cradle to run uphill. The bears looked at each other. One shook his head. They waited.

Shortly thereafter a woman in long red and white robes climbed gracefully down the rope ladder, and strode up the gravel in the direction of the others. The bear that had shaken his head narrowed his eyes as she appeared and before her foot had touched the ground, had urged the others back around a nearby hull. They hid until she was gone.

On the deck the officers and watch officers had a short conversation which ended in Mik offering each of the four watch officers one of four needles from his cupped hands. They drew in order. Terrin, second watch, drew a broken needle, and the draw stopped. The captain drew him aside and spoke for a bit, and then everyone but Terrin grabbed their bags and disembarked. The lone watch officer yelled at them as they went, and Mik yelled back, and then the ship was alone and Terrin grumbled to himself as he went below. 

Once the crew was well on their way in a great horde, three bears followed them, sticking to the deep snowdrifts where they were all but invisible.

Spring came unwillingly. It sidled into the copses of thin-leaved scrub pine and dusted snowflakes from the needles with begrudging incompetence. Patches of snow were left here and there. The changing of the seasons might be inevitable, but it could happen with lazy haphazardness until everyone was sick of the process. Yet however gracelessly the seasons changed, they did change, and the bears paused to sniff at dust mice emerging from their dens and to cough warnings at white-haired fox that scampered too bravely in the sparse green.

The pathways through the Jaggerfall were weaponized geography, full of switchbacks and sharp overlooks, hidden trails over fast-moving water. Partially hidden gates marked deadly falls, where even better hidden gates lead to the true pathway. The crowd knew them all, and hustled through the sharp but thin Jaggerfall mountains. The bears fell back until they followed by smell. Soon they emerged on the central bowl of Dis.

In the distance the thundering Antipodes fell from the sky. Waterfalls formed the solid edge of the world, marching beyond the horizons in either direction with endless streams and noise. Here they could see the clockwork sluice gates from which the oceans poured, and see the stars climbing one by one on their rails. Each gate was miles across, separated by immense gossamer fairings that held driven gears to the raise and lower the shutters. Right now the hot summer gates were near closed and the frigid winter gates wide open, pouring a slush of sleet and seawater onto the broad flatland. The rivers fell from the sky into carved basins that fed great aqueducts, some plunging underground and some running along the surface to be bridged by more geographical architecture. Small cities were stuck between the great rivers and farming towns tended the fields on the overpasses. Everything else was covered in dense trees, nowhere more so than the few dry aqueducts. Black cypress and loaming fir spewed from dry cavemouths the size of harbors, and retreated into the dark density of ancient forests further in, away from the light. From the outside the shadow and the woods were inseparable. 

Dis, the city, grew from the inwardmost of the Jaggerfall mountains, a sharp spire called the Pit. It burst with terraces and balconies like mushrooms on a tree trunk, and from the apex grew many-colored towers. Great conduits ran by or under the city, both wet and dry, and it crouched on old forests with neighborhoods clinging to other Jaggerfall spires. The beast of a metropolis clung there, looking inwards at the Agaila, the long valley of the island's center that rose steadily towards the edge of the world. There was another city on the far side, caped by spray from the Antipodes with taller towers on flatter ground, but the wings of the cataracts hid it from the skin-changer's view. 

Myr sat back on his heels wearing human skin, and the other two paused beside him. Their great shaggy heads regarded the end of the world in awe. The youngest one spoke quietly.

"The Himmelberg, the far city, is said to be untouched by the sun. Only starlight reaches it from stars that have not yet risen. It is said that the towers are silver because the stars steal color from the stone. Anything, fabric, rock, paintings, will turn white under long exposure to starlight. If that's true, and it's only something I've heard, it doesn't work on people."

The larger bear, Jal, sat on his haunches and shrank. His fur melted and flowed as the bear's bulk evaporated. Soon he was human and still. He gazed at the Antipodes, watched the waters of the firmament pour into the seas of Pallas, and heard Myr speaking like an insect buzzing in his hear.

"Well, obviously," he agreed.

"I never thought I'd actually see it," said Myr. "I wasn't even really sure I believed it. I read about it, but I didn't truly believe."

"You can't believe everything you read in books," urged Jal.

The two weren't looking at each other. They talked sideways, facing the clockwork edge of the world but tilted their heads towards each other as they spoke.

"Apparently I should have believed that," said Myr, pointing.

"It's an edge case."

There was a moment of silence, and then Myr turned slowly to face the other. "Did you-"

"On your feet. We have work to do."

They stood on all fours, and three great white bears strode north, down the backside of the Jaggerfall and onto the sloped planes that rose to the sky.


	3. Chapter 3

Screaming in the hallway. Shouting. Rattles and bangs. Very annoying.

Tenp sat up in bed and scowled at nothing. The room held only sounds and old torch smoke. He sniffed. The air might as well be dead. Rags in the vent to keep the rats out. Rats were fine until they started biting. They couldn't be trusted. Yelling in the hallway. He shook his head. Cobwebs under the bed and in his head. Yelling. 

Tenp put uncertain feet on the ground, stood, and took a probing step. His next one was more certain. His third was sure, right to the table. His fingers found a nub of a candle in a teacup. Why had they given him a tea cup? He had no flint. The fire was dead. His face itched.

It was moss-yard on his chin. How long had he been out?

He shook himself a few times. Sounds opened. The door was broad and thick, but cracked. The rags underneath didn't keep sounds or rats out. Footsteps. Angry footsteps. People don't stomp happy. Boots and armor. He fumbled around on the desk and found a warm cup.

In the darkness there was nothing but the soothing touch of the wooden cup. It tugged his fingers when he swirled it. He moved it in circles, and it tried to keep moving. There was liquid in there. He'd been drinking.

Tenp looked at nothing in a room where his eyes open or closed was meaningless, and shot the contents of the cup in one fast gulp.

Springwater. Warm. Old. Not even small beer.

"Praise Yrra, I almost died," whispered Tenp and remembered the flu.

That had been bad. Freezing cold. Hot. Sweating. Water. The candle had burned out while he was wrapped in his bed. He'd been unable to get up. He scratched his moss-yard experimentally. Not spikey any more. The stubble gave under his fingers. Several days at least. Most of a week. He hadn't been drinking. He'd had the flu. And he hadn't died.

"On you, Yrra," he said and realized he desperately had to relieve himself.

This was going to be a bad one. Perhaps the chamber pot was not the best idea. He also needed something to eat and drink.

It was an unpleasant experience to be awake and not-hungover, which meant a lot of rose-tinted predictions had been lies. Morning people lied a lot. They shouldn't be trusted. They should be avoided. By sleeping. Tenp got his head straight and shook the cobwebs off before opening his door and walking right past a search party without a sideways glance. He smelled like death. Death and old sweat. 

He trudged up several flights of stairs to a water-room, a line of stone seats and holes over a rushing saltwater river. After accomplishing his primary mission he trudged upstream to a bathroom, and poured himself a cold one. Cold bathing was good for the heart and skin. Good. He was going to live forever. He went to a common pantry and looked around for the pantry warden to be checked off for his meals. There was no warden. Tenp waited and washed a bucket for drinking water. Someone should have washed it when they turned it in. He looked for the pantry warden. He filled his bucket. He waited.

Tenp made his way back to his rooms with a burlap sack of bread and salt fish, and a covered bucket of fresh water. 

In his room a little bastard was trying to steal his shirt, so Tenp kicked at him, trapped him under the bed, and yelled for the searching party. They came at once and shoved Tenp out of the way before he could open the door. 

"Who yelled?" demanded the foremost.

The searchers wore flax and woolens. They were dark bearded with unkempt hair from under their caps and carried heavy knives on their belts and clubs in their hands. The speaker had a horrifying mustache. It was five distinct parts that didn't match up, most of them hiding under his jaw. Tenp blinked at him a few times.

"I did. There's a-" Tenp began and was interrupted. 

"Who're you!?" yelled Neckbeard.

Tenp blinked again. "I'm Tenp of Diamond-shorn, and this-"

"He's one of the traitors," interjected Lesser Neckbeard behind Neckbeard the Greater. "Archon Merasta is keeping him around in reward for turning coward."

Tenp licked his teeth. His mind was starting to run sharp. "That is not what happened."

"Be silent. Search the room."

"That won't be necessary," said Tenp, stepped forward so he was directly in the way. "You may go."

"Traitor, move-" began Neckbeard the Third, and Tenp made himself cough. It was a wet, ugly sound.

"I'm not a traitor. I had the sweats. It's fast catchy, so Archon Merasta stuck me here so I couldn't spread it. I've been stuck in here, sweating, for days."

The room subtly shifted, like the floor now slanted the other way. Tenp waited. One by one he began to detect the layered odors of old sweat, invisible when he'd woken up. But the door was open now, and cleaner hallway air rushed in. 

"Step back," warned Senior Neckbeard, and there were three hands on knives.

Tenp retreated and promised, "I will bleed on you, and you will be down here where I was. Heal or die, but don't spread it."

He backed up to the far side of the room, calves against the straw bed, and stared at the three guards.

They searched the room without ever moving their feet. They looked right and left, craned their necks to see around the small table, but took not one step further. Then the ugly triplets retreated, one by one, out of the room with threats and harsh looks. Tenp let them go. The heavy door shut with a fantail of rags marking the arc of its swing.

"You weren't sick," said the voice under the bed. "You were poisoned."

Tenp looked down at his feet.

"What?"

"You were poisoned," said the voice. 

The adult considered sticking his arm under the bed and grabbing, but that was a good way to get bit. He retreated and sat by the table.

"What are you talking about?"

A head emerged. It was young, still with the huge eyes of childhood. It's hair was palest blond. It hadn't yet even darkened to gold. Tenp scratched his black beard and squinted at the boy.

"You were poisoned."

"If I was poisoned, Archon Merasta wouldn't have sequestered me to avoid contagion," replied Tenp.

"Archon Merasta didn't poison you. Thams Ameen poisoned you because Thams likes Lady Emory, and you kept sleeping in Emory's bed."

Tenp squinted and shook his head until it nearly fell of. He glared at the boy. "Who are you?" demanded Tenp.

"I'm...Yim."

The man stared at him in blatant skepticism. "Yim?" he asked acidly.

The boy looked left, right, and down. "Yes."

"Yes. 'Yim,'" said Tenp with heavy emphasis on the name. "And Thams told you this?"

"No. He told Emory."

Tenp stared at the boy for a long time. "You're that Prince Edgar."

Edgar, or Yim, didn't look up or say anything.

Tenp stared at him for a while, putting a face to an uninterested memory. "Emory is your watch-nurse. She told me about you. You're bigger than she let on. I thought you were an infant."

"She thinks I'm a baby," said Edgar, little more than a mutter.

"She does." Tenp nodded.

A slow silence filled the room between them.

"What color are her eyes?" Tenp asked.

"The right one is brown. The left one is green."

"And Thams?"

"Brown. He's shorter than you but bigger," said Edgar.

Tenp's eyes went flat as he clenched his jaw.

"Emory says she likes the way he does it more than you," added Edgar. 

"That-" screamed Tenp and caught himself. He continued in a cold tone. "-is enough of that. I was sick when Archon Merasta dragged King Erl into the street. I got better, and things calmed down, and then I got sick again."

Edgar nodded. "That was Thams. He put some stuff in a drinking glass. Emory says you'll drink anything when you wake up. She told Thams not to, but it was a sort-of not to. After Archon Merasta came, I had nightmares, and she slept in my room for a long time. You weren't allowed in."

Tenp sat and thought, and thought, and thought. There were footsteps in the hall, and he moved his chair in front of the door. He sat and thought, and when someone knocked, he yelled at them. They went away.

"Why are you here now?" asked Tenp.

"People came looking for me. I didn't feel good about them."

Tenp thought out loud. "It's been a few months. I haven't heard anything about Mittage." Chasing that to its conclusion briefly silenced him. He looked at the boy. "Do you know who Mittage is?"

"I told you, I'm not a baby," replied Edgar, and the boy looked down.

Tenp stared at him and thought, 'This is what they look like in their seventh year. Big head. Small body. Small arms and hands. Quiet. Not much crying.'

"So you know how that's going to go," said Tenp to himself. "I wonder what will happen to Emory if you go missing."

Edgar looked up with wide, innocent eyes. He was just a child. "I don't know," the boy admitted. "I imagine they'll be very mad at her."

Tenp watched the boy and thought.

 

Tenp talked, his head far away from where his feet lead him. 

He had rolled the boy up in a foul-smelling blanket and carried the bed-roll and a chamberpot down. There had been security at the inner walls, where the fortifications of the old castle separated the palace quadrants. In time the palace converted courtyards to room blocks and adjusted garrisons to atriums. At the heavy doors between sections guards checked everyone, but those that ranged within the Sapphire Courtyard, five levels of stairway and floors shot through with branching fireplaces, rarely approached the sick man with his fragrant burdens.

Tenp had gone down four flights of wooden stairs to a broad floor of ancient pavestones. In a put-aside chamber another stairway dove into the floor. A low wall ringed the stairway from when it was a well, and the bucket and hoist still ran down the central cavity. Each stair was so steep Tenp went down backwards, and hoisted the blanket roll down in stages. The chamber pot was emptied into a salt-water chute, and left above to dry. 

Down underground where the last ray of light was a slim beam, Tenp unrolled and released Edgar. The boy shivered like his skill crawled. 

Tenp said, "The secret to getting anywhere without being searched is walk fast, don't make eye-contact, and carry a dirty chamber pot. No one wants to talk to the guy carrying a chamber pot. No one wants to know that person, and they'll pretend you don't exist if they possibly can. They could have stopped me and asked to search the filthy blanket roll, but everyone knew I was sick. If there's one thing people want to do less than talk to the guy carrying the dirty chamber pot, it's talk to the sick man carrying his sick blankets and a dirty chamber pot. I could walk out with the crown jewels.

"It's a double advantage for me, really. I got you out, and in case you lied to me about being poisoned, you just spent an hour wrapped up in my sick blankets. You're as good as dead. And that, boy, is a way to go worthy of a liar." Tenp half smiled and buffed his nails on his shirt.

"Is that what you would have said to yourself if you'd died?" muttered Edgar.

"But I survived."

"Where are we?" asked Edgar.

"In the machine levels."

Edgar had a vague impression of size from the way air moved and guessed this room or chamber was somewhat larger than two sloops, side by side. He heard wind coming in from two directions, and heard it whistle up the stairs only. There were other noises, dim, repetitive, and regular that cycled ominously through the distance.

"Those are the wheels," said Tenp. "Three aqueducts, the Working Sisters, meet in Atrian's Well, though Summer, the hot sister is almost gone right now. Winter and Spring are full. In the Well there's a double layered mixer, two rivers stacked on top of each other." He laid his hands flat, palm of left on back of right, standing by the staircase so the narrow beam of light caught what he was doing. His face was a series of vertical shadows. "The top draw, Chastity, takes the ice, slush, trees and logs if they're floating, and goes around the city. Summer has a few spillovers that make sure enough hot water mixes in to keep Chastity flowing, and that merges with the River Run which flows into the Jaggerfall. The bottom draw, Diligence, takes the moving water right underneath the city. She drives our waterwheels, and the waterwheels drive the city. It's all salt water, of course. You can't drink it."

"Where do you get water to drink?" asked Edgar, who had never had a clear answer to this.

"During winter we gather snow and put it in iron-bottomed cisterns over Summer. She melts the ice, and we refill our cisterns from that. You know how much rain we get after the thaw, so those aren't concerns."

"Oh," said Edgar. 

Tenp stared from his bar of light into the grimness of the machine level. "Loaming firs are the problem. They like salt water, and they don't need sunlight to grow. Pinecones got into Discipline, and now they're clogging her up. What should be a wide open channel is now lined on both sides with firs." He stared into the unlit corridors.

After a moment he shook his head. "That's where you come in. We're going to Atrian's Well. It's too late for it to freeze, and there's plenty to drink, runoff from the drifts that pile up on Summer. The nuts in the pinecones are edible, and they're everywhere. Ever had Rhemly?" Edgar nodded. "That's ground pinenuts. No one goes there, so you won't be found. I work down here, so in a little while, when your father agrees to return Mittage, I'll miraculously find you, and you get shipped back home. Come along. Now we don't use candles or torches down here, because there isn't much air movement. No one will see you, but don't make any noise."

Edgar accepted this without complaint, but Tenp said, "There are not many people who work down here. The machines are complex, and since you can't light up torches whenever you want, they're dangerous. The Archon offered us all jobs to keep the skills. We shouldn't meet anyone. But don't touch anything. Some of the gears can move very suddenly. What you think is still may be at perihelion and about to dive into a machine. They snatch and bite. Don't touch anything. It's dangerous."

Edgar agreed again. 

Tenp thought and had to shake himself out of his thoughts. He lead the way into a side corridor, moving quickly and to Edgar's eyes, certainly seemed to be familiar with the unlit hallways.


	4. Chapter 4

The Pit overlooked Atrian's Well with shadows reaching far east to grasp for dawn before they drowned. From any distance the Well looked like a quarry, and other than a few fences and signs to keep the blind oblivious from falling in, it was unmarked. No one was there, looking down. A cold wind of both the winter-rivers, unwarmed from where they fell out of the walls of the sky, cut through clothing to the bone. But these winds stayed mostly in the Well, and outside spring continued a bitter, hard-fought advance. Rabbits looked for sparse forage among the scrub. 

Nor did anyone see three ghost bears, less than a mile from the Well and completely unaware of it. The bears moved with stealth that beguiled their size, keeping to the snow and the edges of trees. Logged stumps hid their outlines. Close to the city they had disappeared into an abandoned barn, and Tuk and Myr emerged as men. They sat on a log bench to adjust their clothing. The chill of night began to emerge from holes, but could do nothing against the thick bearskins and leather. 

"What do you want to do?" asked Tuk, looking at the rock spire that shot up from the city.

"Charge in, kill everybody, get the prince, leave," said Myr, tying his boots.

Tuk looked at him, his mouth hanging open. "That is a terrible plan!"

 

"You asked what I wanted to do, not what we should do," retorted Myr.

Tuk tried to argue and instead massaged the bridge of his nose.

Jal shortly emerged from the barn and saw Myr smirking, Tuk frustrated. He moved on. He asked, like a check, "Did you both catch the new wolf spoor?"

Tuk rolled his eyes and was done with the other. "Yes. Within the last day or so. They came here, probably checking on the rabbits, and left when they noticed the rabbit droppings were old."

"Correct," affirmed Jal. "But I meant the newness of the wolves at all. There are a fair number of them around, but no signs older than a month. This barn would have been in service this time last year, the end of winter when wolves are hungriest, and there was no old spoor. No old hair, old footprints, nothing. Wolves are new-come to this place."

The other two were silent, and when Tuk spoke, he had a wheedling tone. "Well, wolves don't like people, so they probably only came here when this place was abandoned."

"No. First, there were no old signs along the route from the sea to here. Second, a starving wolf will investigate any food source, and these Gehennians keep many rabbits. There should be traces of them around. There are none. Third, look at this barn," and Jal pulled them back to pay attention to the building behind them.

It was a high-crested A-frame with two walls that formed a roof, peaked thirty feet in the air and covered in turf. Three slatted windows ran along the top on each side. On the east the barn opened at ground level with a ramp ringing the north wall of the barn to enter a door a second floor up on the west. Inside the rabbit hutches were floored with straw and pellets, and weeds grew in lines across the floor.

"Weeds are inside the hutches. There have been no rabbits in these hutches since before last autumn. This may have been a sheep barn from the ramp outside, but no shearings or droppings. No sheep in at least a few years. Look at the gates. These locks are steel and complex. Come," finished Jal, and climbed a wooden ladder to the upper floor. He pointed at the ventilation windows on the roof. "But those aren't locked. If there were wolves, one could work the shutters open and get in. She probably wouldn't be able to get out, but while she was trapped here, she'd kill everything. A human would be less interested, because a human would know climbing out was difficult or impossible, certainly problematic carrying a sheep."

Tuk kept searching for arguments but found them thinner and thinner. Myr asked, "So what do you draw from that?"

"There were no wolves here a month ago, none on Dis before this winter."

"So they crossed the Fhysay?" asked Myr in cautious neutrality.

"That-" began Jal, and he paused. They stood in silence.

"Someone brought them across the Fhysay?" pressed Myr even blander.

"I speak what I know, and won't guess at what I don't," said Jal. He scowled. "We'll enter Dis come evening, when the guards hurry everyone through so they can close the gates. Humans tend to pay the least attention to their jobs when they're almost done. Don't speak and look down. I will lie for us. Our first night is to gain knowledge of the city and find a way out. We do not approach the lairs of governance."

The outer walls of Dis were high and strong, grown in three layers. Deep blue was the lowest, an azure granite that matched the stones under the earth around the city. Next was a pale grey with blue battlements built into the second wall where the foot of the second level stood on the head of the first. Above the grey was the white with a line of stone soldiers across the crest, protecting the rampart behind their rock shoulders and stone heads. Each level was marvelously intricate. The ramparts of the blue were cloud-waves and flowing streams, the white was sharp geometry and angled lines, while at the top was carved into men at arms. A perfect file of shieldmen formed a battlement, crests of all the old houses of Gehenna present on those shields. 

The gatehouse was clearly a late addition to the walls, being of common black stone laid loosely with wide troughs of mortar. Its ramparts were a simple square wave without adornment. There were two gates, and a guard post between them, a long line stretching out across the road. The inner gate lead to a courtyard beyond the walls, and the outer gate opened on a stone bridge over a deep fosse. The line was not long, but filled with hurried, bothered people who looked impatiently at the setting sun. Jal, Tuk, and Myr joined the end and stood more patiently than the rest.

 

They in turn were observed but not noted by a grim woman in faded greys, old black clothing that had seen too many wears. She was before them in line and frowned curiously at their bear-skins. Before she could remark, a burning corpse fell out of the sky.

"This had better not slow the line down," said a turnip farmer beside her.

The body slammed into flagstones, cracking them, and bounced. It burned hot and furious, little whirlwinds of flame hopping off like devils and splattering on the ground. The few people nearby looked over and went back to what they were doing. 

"What is it?" demanded a short man whose vision was blocked by the turnip farmer's immense pack.

"Falling corpse," snapped the farmer. 

"If I have to stay outside overnight, it had better be because the corpse hit someone, and they had better be dead." The short man hissed and shook his head. 

The woman, who had used three names on her way to Dis and was about to give a fourth, tore her eyes away from the smoldering corpse and looked at the two angry men in line. After several wide-eyed blinks, she asked, "What?" unable to extend the question.

"Next!" yelled the guard.

The turnip farmer took a step and reconsidered. With disgruntled grace, he indicated the woman should go first. "Hurry up," he urged. "You're ahead of me."

"Next!" yelled the guard, angrier. "Move!"

The woman looked back and forth, and hastened towards the low desk.

There were four guards, one seated, two leaning against a wall, and one standing at bored attention. She marked the one standing and the one on the wall to the right as being competent, the desk guard having been capable before assigned to endless paperwork. The desk was a repurposed box, a door laid over the slats and planed flat, with the desk sergeant's helmet, a pen and inkwell, and two fat alcohol candles and a stamp kit. The guard was clean shaven and well dressed, and as hungry and angry as everyone in line.

"Name?" he barked. She did not think his hostility was directed at her.

"Elegy," she replied.

"Weird name. Where are you from?"

"Glass Harbor in the West. I can sing," she replied.

"Did I ask you if you could sing?" demanded the guard.

"You were going to ask me why I've come to Dis. I came because I can sing, and there's good money to be made in Gehenna if you can carry a tune without beating it," she replied. She looked earnest.

The guard looked vaguely irritated before nodding a faint defeat. "That's probably true. You any good?"

"Yes."

He nodded and asked for her paper. She gave him a ship's boarding pass on a crumpled piece of vellum, signed with an X and a wax seal long since scratched away. The guard looked at it. Elegy felt his attention reach out to the long line and the low grumbling. 

"Good enough. Can you write?"

"No," she lied.

The guard nodded, wrote "Elegy" on the paper in the house script of Ebony. To her eyes it read, "Mourn." Then he cooked the stamp, stamped her paper, and waved her through.

"Next!"

Elegy went first to the corpse, and it was burning hard and fast. People looped wide to get around. Only Elegy seemed interested.

Feeling like a bumpkin, she looked up. They were far from the spires of the Pit, and the sky was clear, the rising stars unbroken save for a thick cloud mass the gears of the clockwork sky were churning up. Two men in a doorway on the far side of the square took note of her, her unfamiliarity, and whispered something. Elegy put her head down and moved quickly into the city.

Her confidence returned as she faded away. 

Dis was a tall, sharp city. The houses were sharply roofed in slate or wood, those of cheaper timber pitched with tar. Most houses were three or more stories tall with hoisting posts jutting from the front eaves. Where they came together, snow collected. Now most houses had at least two stories of brown slush between them. 

Elegy was a ghost the rest of the day, speaking to no one and noticed by no one. Dis did not light its streets, and her dun greys fit into the shadows. Elegy was neither short nor tall with chin length dark hair, green eyes, and charcoaled lips like the Glass Islanders wore. She wore three bracelets on each wrist, green tinted glass wound with dyed leather. They made no sound when knocked together. She spent the evening walking and looking until almost midnight and the peeling of the eleventh bell. When it finished tolling she stood outside a heavy wooden doorway, and she waited. Someone opened the door without her knocking.

It was Scarlet, the woman from Captain Tisharee's ship.

"You're still here," said Elegy.

"Weather."

Scarlet shut and locked the door before going back to the final throes of a party, and Elegy was nowhere to be found.

 

Tenp and Edgar emerged from a small workers door in the basin of Atrian's Well, where the high walls blocked even the most determined, or luckiest, watchers from the city. Hollow wind chimes hung from the door, to both click and moan as the winds desired. Several more stood on isolated poles around the doorway, forming a loose picket that Tenp lead the way through. He had lead the boy away from the city through tunnels to get here, but once in the basin turned and walked back towards it. Loaming firs clustered both sides of the saltwater and spread out, making the two walkers wind between them. Their path was carpeted and pleasant. On either side the stone box-walls rose hundreds of feet to ground level, and Edgar calculated he was deeper than any but the highest spires of the Pit reached. Once they saw a rabbit. Otherwise the walk towards the cavernous transition of the Well of Atrian from stone canyon to subterranean aqueduct was uneventful, but they felt eyes on them from the trees. It might have been the memory of movement on the walls. Edgar tried to talk once, and Tenp shushed him.

"Let's not make noise. Sound shouldn't travel here, but I mean to take no chances," he said.

Edgar nodded, and they walked on.

Past the arc of the roof the firs quickly spread to a full fledged forest, and they blocked the dim light that wound backwards. The sun would be far south in front of them, but some light of the evening made the trek back and down. They continued along until Tenp cautioned Edgar with a hand on his shoulder, and they went slow. After only a short distance with the sky still grinding bright behind them, stars clicking upwards along gear-chain paths, they stopped before a sharp bluff. The water crashed and fell, and the way was foggy. A crashing stream of ice and sleet turned hard to the east, which must be the icy path of Chastity. Before them was a deep pit to another river that ran straight under Dis. It would have been easy to fall over.

"Do we go on?" asked Edgar.

"We don't," replied Tenp and tapped the boy on his shoulder.

Edgar looked up.

Tenp looked down and made eye contact, then snatched a fistful of Edgar's shirt. The boy inhaled sharply to scream and tried to catch at Tenp's hand, but the machine-worker was fast. He yanked Edgar into the air one-handed and cast him forward, over the sharp cliff and into the mist.

In a twitch the Prince of Celephias was gone, and there was nothing but the roar of Atrian's Virtues. If Edgar had screamed, he couldn't be heard.

"No chances," said Tenp, and he turned and walked back to Dis.


	5. Chapter 5

5

The tiered walls of Dis froze overnight. Half a finger's width of snow fell by morning when the temperature plunged, turning the second half of the snowfall to ice. Hoarfrost collected on windows and doors. Southward facing walls were polished to a white-mirror shine. The early risers of the city found other things to do instead of going out before the sleet stopped at fifth bell. Quiet chimney plumes were denser than usual, but otherwise the city was a pale, still reflection of itself. Another burning corpse, this one a woman, fell from the sky and shattered the skin of ice on a snow pit between the palace's East and North Wings. It smoldered into nothingness in the snow, leaving wet ash.

By the bells it was two hours before dawn, and the three skin-changers were holed in an alley between two unused buildings. The men were silent, but the buildings weren't, grinding and creaking interminably. Each of the men had sniffed at windows and checked the doors, sealed with rope and wax, and Jal was still thinking of breaking the seal to find out what was making the noise when the corpse hit almost across the street. The men crouched low.

Two guards on patrol stopped by the smoldering pile and looked up. The sky was empty of everything but stars.

"Goddammit, stop!" yelled one at the heavens.

"This is ridiculous. Do we really have to pull guard on this thing?" demanded the other.

"No, you pull guard. I'll go report it."

"It's just a corpse! It's not doing anything a candle doesn't!"

The men lurking in the shadows shared a look, caught between complete surprise and denial. The guards, wrapped in fur and leather, stood almost over the sizzling corpse bickering. One was trying to pull rank, time in grade, and the other was arguing for time in service, and neither of them wanted to stand over a smoldering corpse.

"Why- why are corpses falling out of the sky?" asked Tuk. His eyes were wide, and his nostrils flared with each breath.

"Will of the gods," said Jal. He looked right and left. "Do you see anyone else?"

Tuk looked around. "No. Why?"

"Two free uniforms there," said Jal.

Myr wasn't watching anyone. Instead he was staring up at the empty sky. He stepped out of concealment, moving into the moonlight in the alley, and walked towards the mouth of the alley with his eyes upwards. Both guards marked him. Jal snarled like a hiss while Tuk gasped. 

"Hey! Who are you?" asked one.

"Stars," said Myr.

"Stars, my-" and the guard didn't finish when the rain of corpses fell.

Thousands of them hit as one, smashing stone roofs and shattering the skeins of ice over cisterns. They burned like meteors and flared with dirty flames on the ground. Falling bodies shattered the windows of the Pit's high towers and impaled themselves on spikes. The towers of Dis redirected rain from gutters either by downspouts or rain-catchers, hanging spikes where a gutter was impossible or undesirable, typically with high spars for vertical symmetry. They tore arms and legs from torsos, and bodies ripped spikes from the walls to stab into the streets. Human fluids burned as the spinning bodies threw their contents through the air. Tuk could see far building by the firelight. 

Strangest, thought Myr, was the drum-beat, the way they hit. They didn't bounce. They slammed. They smashed. Each one impacted with devastating force, breaking houses, outbuildings, and cracking the broad flagstones underfoot. The first wave was legion, and what followed was myriad.

The two guards forgot about Myr and ran screaming for the guardhouse. Jal dashed out of the questionable safety of the alley, grabbed Myr, and yanked him towards the palace. "Change of plan. We go in now."

"What?" whispered Tuk, who could not understand anything that's going on.

"We get the boy now."

"The sky is shitting burning corpses!" screamed Tuk. "Are you not seeing this?"

"Not our problem. We need to get the boy. Come on."

Myr was still in a daze, lost in the sight of uncountable bodies tumbling. They spun and danced with wings of flame. Shrouds of broad fire leaped from their bodies. He couldn't look away. Jal didn't wait. He picked up Myr and dragged him towards the palace. Two fiery impacts had torn a hole in the outer wall, where an office building added onto the palace and merged with the fortified wall. Jal made for the junction and shoved Myr ahead of him, beckoning Tuk along behind.

Tuk felt like the only sane man in a city of the mad as Dis woke up screaming, shouts from every window and alarm bells ringing. Of course alarm was hardly mad now, was it? A body nearly crushed him, smashed into unrecognizable flesh on impact. Fires jumping from within. Tuk had no idea if it had been a man or a woman. The remains were naked.

Jal shouted and beckoned. Tuk ran after him.

 

Inside Jal fought through the halls as frightened people woke up and looked out their windows. Screams echoed in the corridors. It was close enough to dawn that the morning shift was waking, and some of them were trying to ignore the outside and complete their business. Jal passed two women folding sheets with tired expressions. A man charged out of his room naked when a corpse fell through the window, shredding itself on the coarse glass and lead frame. His room was a nightmare. Somehow he and the two laundresses began screaming at each other over whose fault it was. Jall shoved Myr past the burning room, even though the other was paying attention again.

"Let go," said Myr as they rounded a corner.

"No. You get distracted."

"I said let go!" snapped Myr and smashed Jal across the forearms, breaking his grip.

Jal's eyes went wide and dilated, coarse short hairs stood on end, thickening around the follicle. Tuk tried to head them off. 

"Where's Prince Edgar?" he asked someone, a young man who seemed to be keeping his head together.

The youth breath-laughed. "No one knows! Why shouldn't he be missing too?"

"Where are his rooms?" pressed Tuk.

"Across the Yinnish Courtyard, the Silver Falcon tower."

Tuk thanked him, and turned back, his two compatriots still human and glaring at each other. Tuk announced he was going to the Silver Falcon tower, and after another stare-off, they followed. 

They had to fight their way outside, not with fists but shoulders and hips, shoving a congregation of babbling palace workers from the doorway. People were hanging off each other in near panic and refused to move. Tuk relied on his size and elbows, and the other two followed.

The Yinnish Courtyard was one of the few uncovered courtyards in the palace, still open to the sky. Additional levels to high walls mounded up on every side of grow, growing almost biologically and sheltered ad hoc roofs. What had protected the courtyard from assumption by the building this long was the broad pool at the center of it, one of the main collection points for summer rain. A depth marker by the door read eight fathoms with wind chimes and Aeolian flutes as markers. Two catwalks crossed the pool's center, and a ledge ringed the deeps. 

It was full of corpses. Some trick of architecture had funnelled mountains of them into this place, and they'd shattered a rime over the pool two hands thick. The pool boiled, and the windchimes clattered. The flutes howled an ugly music. Going out was impossible, and even the heat at the doorway, separated from the bubbling cistern by a short foyer, was enough to burn the eyes. Tuk found himself blinking back tears. 

"They said they were going to build it up, so they redirected the hot water to other cisterns," said someone, privileged to have a new person to explain to. "They turned off the melt-water a month ago, and the Yinnish pool has been freezing ever since."

"Who's 'they?'" demanded Jal.

"You know. They!" the stranger pointed at the ground. "She doesn't need hot water anymore!"

Tuk reached out and grabbed the man by the shoulders. His mitts wrapped from clavicle to shoulder blade, tenting the stranger's two coats inwards against the skin.

"Why are burning corpses falling out of the sky?" Tuk asked.

"No one knows!"

"We all know!" snapped someone else. Tuk noticed half the crowd gasping, and the other half nodding. Some frisson bore against the speaker, a middle-aged woman who worked a desk by the look of it. She refused to be deterred. Her name was Hebura, and she spoke into the faces of those who would stop her like she was spitting a defiance. "God does not accept Archon Merasta's rule."

Some pitch of hostility jumped two octaves, and the crowd spoke less, but tension sounded louder. It was like a shrieking whistle, perhaps if the seething courtyard was a pot, shrieking at boil. 

"An old idiot can call anything a sign," said the stranger who had spoken of the hot water piping. Named Emuran and similar in age and stature to Hebura, his clothing was unlike Hebura's carefully neutral woolens of faded white and grey, Emuran wore dark black sashes across his arms. They looked new. Myr couldn't imagine how else they would have kept the color after washing.

"There's nothing that links the two!" yelled Emuran.

"She takes over, and angels start dying!"

Jal looked at Tuk. Tuk tried to will them all somewhere else. Myr turned and pushed his way back inwards from the boiling pool, but the crowd was angry. They fought back against him. 

"Do not speak that traitor's speech!" Emuran yelled again.

Jal and Tuk came to Myr's aid, fighting to get away from the courtyard and pool. 

"I'll say what I want!" shouted Hebura behind them. There was a gasp. Myr broke free, and Jal was right behind him. Only a twist of hallway, a poorly designed pivot where the wall kinked and traffic was impeded kept Jal back. If it wasn't clogged with people, he would have had no problems. Myr made the mistake of looking back over his shoulder.

He saw something that looked like a knife.

"No, you won't!" shouted Emuran, and the knife vanished. 

Someone screamed. On the far side, in open hallway past the press of people, Myr didn't hear the scream. Myr heard an old woman gasp. She sounded hollow.

The crowd exploded in shouting, and Jal gave up pushing and started hitting. Tuk put his head down and barrelled forward. He smashed humans into walls and kicked them to the ground, charging back, away from the stabbing. The trio kicked their way out of the pack as someone else screamed, "Don't you do it!" long after Hebura was done. Light glinted on the ceiling, and something tumbled, screaming, towards the boiling cistern.

"This palace is an ant hole. To Silver Falcon tower!" hissed Jal. The noise didn't get better.

"How?" asked Myr.

"The fast way."

Inside the hallway they became bears. Immense brown coated grizzlies whose shoulders spread from wall to wall dashed through the passages and for once had no problems with crowds. Corpses smashed relentless against the building, and broke lesser windows and walls. The runners didn't care. They ringed the boiling courtyard fast, bellowing at any human who got in their way and charged upwards. On the far side they came to a stairway with white falcons embellished in the stone.


End file.
